I was typing an Emergency Management report on disaster prevention when it occurred. Irony.



At about 7:10pm a loud explosion was heard. I looked out the window and the transformer grid across the street (about 120 feet away) was on fire with visible smoke and flame. I immediately called 911 because students were running toward it.


If you know anything about transformers, it's that they will try to relay transfer power until they are shut down. So this was bad because another explosion was a certainty.



Dispatch answered and I explained that the transformer on the corner of Exchange and Buckeye exploded, and that kids were running toward it. I said that it was going to explode again and that they need to send a squad in case the kids get to close. As I said that the second explosion happened, about 3 times larger than the first. The kids screamed and ran away.



Dispatch said that they will call the utilities department to shut it down. So that was a relief. Response time was about 4-4.5 minutes. 6 units showed up first to block the road and the incident, followed by 2 engines, 1 ladder, a single squad, and then about 10 minutes after the first responders showed, the utilities department showed up to convert and start work on restoring the power. Not to mention a lot of media was there.



No one ended up getting hurt. A lot of reports of students trapped in elevators came through our backup EMA center here at school though.



At about 8:05pm power was restored.





I'm glad that I'm in this field sometimes.


True story. I hope you liked it.